How different is Modi’s India?

By Mazhar Abbas
September 30, 2016

Prof Stanley Wolpert in his famous book, 'India and Pakistan' said, “The most troubling potential obstacles to the viability of Kashmir issue is the possibility of the elections in India of another BJP-led government led by anti-Muslim Hindutva extremist like Narendra Modi.

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His fear was that his coming to power means all prospects of peace would diminish for permanent peace between the two countries, without which no solution to Kashmir is possible.

How right he was as the BJP won the election, Modi got elected as prime minister and peace diminished.

Modi's India is far more different, more extremist and politics based on Hindutva, which has also damaged its image as a secular state. It’s neither an India of Gandhi nor Nehru. It’s not even an India of Indira or BJP's Vajpayee.

He has made India hostage to his mindset and pushed the country towards extremism. Today, even the president of Indian Cricket Board talks like a BJP spokesman; BJP's militant wings are threatening Pakistan actors and actresses. A large section of India's mainstream electronic media's tone also reflected the same mindset.

India has ended cricketing ties with Pakistan and made sports hostage to Modi's way of dealing with Pakistan and that too in negative sense. He knew people of the countries love to see cricket between the two countries but the last one-day series were held in 2013, while the last full tour of Pakistan to India was in 2008.

This is how India has changed under Modi and extremist mindset. Once cricket was used for the revival of ties between the two countries and used to be called 'cricket diplomacy’, which started in an era of the late General Ziaul Haq.

Even the Bollywood under Modi has changed and not only Pakistani artistes had been threatened, at times concerts were disrupted, but even the saner voices from Indian film industry also come under attack.

All this is Modi's India, which has defamed the secular face of India. Even the secular parties like Congress, Communist Party of India and other parties had become hostage to one man's mindset.

No wonder why some friends from India said, “It’s not shining India but extremist India.”

One must appreciate lot of saner voices of India in this difficult time within our hostile neighbour. How well noted Indian actor Om Puri, producer Kiran Johur, Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan and Indian journalist like Barka Dutt and many more had responded.

Modia's India is a challenge for India, not for Pakistan. It’s a challenge to democracy and secular India; it’s a challenge to India's professional journalism.

India's jingoism is Modi's politics as through ‘hate Pakistan’ policy, his eyes are fixed at the next election.

Prior to Modi's government, Indian government had never opposed the meeting of visiting Pakistani president or prime minister from meeting the Kashmiri leaders. But, in his government, it becomes a matter of controversy.

Some in India were expecting major economic reforms under his government and economic stability links with peace, which Modi's government not interested in.

Modi's handling of Kashmir is more brutal; there had been more violations of human rights and some of the leaders of his own alleys left him because of his inhuman policies.

Pakistani leaders over the years always wanted peace with India, whether the civilian leaders or military dictators. From General Ziaul Haq to General Pervez Musharraf, also went too far in their efforts for peace with Indian.

Similarly, the civilian leadership, from Benazir Bhutto to Nawaz Sharif, all went out of the way to improve relationship with its neighbour.

Pakistan never went to an extent of breaking cricketing or cultural ties with India. Yes, for years, we had problems with extremism and terrorism, but, it is also true that after 9/11, it is Pakistan's state policy to eliminate terrorism and extremism.

No country gave as much sacrifices as did Pakistan in this war. It lost over 65,000 people and yet from Swat to North Waziristan, it had broken the backbone of the terrorists. Operation Zarb-e-Azb, and National Action Plan were landmark decisions.

Pakistani electorate have always voted for liberal and moderate voices, which itself reflected the voters’ mindset as well. From the PPP to PML-N and from the PTI to ANP, all parties including religious parties like JUI-F and JI want to resolve all outstanding issues including Kashmir with India.

Perhaps, that is the reason why no war hysteria has been created either by the media or by the civil and military leadership in response to what is going on within India.

Pakistan's response to the violation at the LoC has been reactive and of restrain and this is exactly what DG ISPR, Lt-Gen Asim Bajwa said when asked about Pakistan's response. “We only responded and are ready for that but would not act.”

India knows well that the present uprising in Indian-held Kashmir is indigenous but is using the brute force to crush the movement.

Nuclear states also know that they cannot fight but can destroy. Those even think about the possibility of any such war would be advised to go through history of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two Japanese cities still not fully recovered from the worst-ever disaster in human history in the second World War. So, it was shocking to hear from a responsible Indian Minister talking so irresponsibly about 'nuclear war' with Pakistan.

Kashmir is a dispute between India and Pakistan and people of Kashmir are the key stakeholders. India knows that it cannot escape from recognising it and addressing it sooner the better. So, when Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said in her speech in the UN that Kashmir is India's integral part, it was a historically wrong. She not only negated her country's own history but also that of the United Nations.

Whether the world gave any value to the resolutions on Kashmir, moved by India and provide solution to the problem some 60 years back or not, but no one could deny this historic fact. Had Kashmir been India's integral part, it would not have gone to the UN.

Some 40 years back, if nothing else both India and Pakistan had agreed to resolve all the outstanding issues including Kashmir, through bilateral talks. So, if India, today, has gone so low that it talks of breaking Indus Water Treaty unilaterally, it is not possible.

India also knows that it has started a nuclear arms race when it conducted first nuclear test few years after 1971 war. Pakistan's former prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, followed the suit because the world did not stop India from becoming a nuclear power. History repeated itself in 1998, and Pakistan only responded and become the nuclear state.

No other country in the world had given so many sacrifices as Pakistan did in this war, which historically was not its war, but that of the CIA. We became the victim and till today have given sacrifice of over 65,000 people including thousand of our soldiers.

If India is really a true democratic and secular country, why it is trying to escape plebiscite? Is any such demand undemocratic and need to be crushed by brute force. How can you call an indigenous uprising and brand it as terrorism. Why India never had a stable government. The best solution to the problem was in fact proposed by India itself 60 years back before the United Nation, and accepted the right to self-determination.

Had the Indian-held Kashmir been an integral part of India, as claimed by India's Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj in her speech on Monday, why from Shimla to Lahore and from Lahore to Agra, it had been recognised as a dispute between the two countries.

Why India is avoiding plebiscite. Let the people decide their own destiny. Is it not a democratic right of the people of a disputed territory? India has every right to take its position on Kashmir, during the talks but has to recognise it as a dispute.

The way forward is in talks and not in talking of war. One who understands BJP's mindset would not follow the famous versus of Ali Sardar Jaffery's poem, ‘Jang Khud Aik Masla Hay’ (War is in itself a problem).

How come a country would go to the UN to seek a solution to Kashmir if it was its integral part? I am sure Sushma Swaraj knows that.

There is still no war hysteria in Pakistan and even in this tension, resumption of train service, Samjautha Express after one day suspension became Pakistani media's front page photograph.

India needs to get rid of Modi’s mindset, which has threatened India, its society and its political culture. Pakistan is ready for talk as PM Sharif time and again has said, 'War is no solution, it’s a problem’.

The writer is the senior columnist and analyst of GEO, The News and Jang

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